Kaffir folk-lore, The Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderful Feather., sentence 1
Once in a time of famine a woman left her home and went to live in a distant village, where she became a cannibal.
Who acts: woman · What happens: leave, go, live, become · To what, where: home, distant village, cannibal
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderful Feather.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Once | once | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 9 left | advmod |
| 2 | in | in | ADP | _ | 4 time | case |
| 3 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 4 time | det |
| 4 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 left | obl |
| 5 | of | of | ADP | _ | 6 famine | case |
| 6 | famine | famine | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 time | nmod |
| 7 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 8 woman | det |
| 8 | woman | woman | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 left | nsubj |
| 9 | left | leave | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 10 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 11 home | nmod:poss |
| 11 | home | home | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 left | obj |
| 12 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 13 went | cc |
| 13 | went | go | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 9 left | conj |
| 14 | to | to | PART | _ | 15 live | mark |
| 15 | live | live | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 13 went | xcomp |
| 16 | in | in | ADP | _ | 19 village | case |
| 17 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 19 village | det |
| 18 | distant | distant | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 19 village | amod |
| 19 | village | village | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 live | obl |
| 20 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 23 became | punct |
| 21 | where | where | ADV | PronType=Rel | 23 became | advmod |
| 22 | she | she | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 23 became | nsubj |
| 23 | became | become | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 19 village | acl:relcl |
| 24 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 25 cannibal | det |
| 25 | cannibal | cannibal | NOUN | Number=Sing | 23 became | xcomp |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 9 left | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | leave | past | a woman | woman's home | time | once property | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent home=Theme | ||
| 2 | go | past | a woman not said here | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 3 | live | to-infinitive | a woman not said here | a distant village | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in village=Location | ||||
| 4 | become | past | woman | a cannibal | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.
Text: «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Project Gutenberg book 71335 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/12/1/